


Watercolor

by TheVineSpeaketh



Series: The Arts of Domesticity [2]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Love Bites, M/M, Pre-Slash, Suits, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, sharp dressed men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-30
Updated: 2015-06-30
Packaged: 2018-04-07 00:35:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4242774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheVineSpeaketh/pseuds/TheVineSpeaketh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Now that Q had some clue as to what was going on, James was able to tell the truth. </p><p>Well, to an extent."</p><p>For Q and James, life goes on. After James is gone for a few weeks, though, things seem to change. Again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Watercolor

James was gone on a trip that lasted a few weeks to Syria to deal with some business left unfinished regarding British intel. Usually, he would have made up some excuse to Q regarding expositions and tours and sealing deals, but now that Q had some clue as to what was going on, he was able to tell the truth.

Well, to an extent.

He’d walked out of his bedroom in a crisp suit and tie, his bag already packed and his mind immediately set on catching a quick breakfast and a bit of tea, and had caught Q standing in the kitchen, his hair ruffled and his lithe body swimming in one of James’s bath robes. His pyjama pants, upon closer inspection, were revealed to be his own.

“Did you fall asleep on the couch again?” James asked, taking notice of the bags under Q’s eyes and the tiredness of his smile when he cast one at James.

Q was standing in front of the stove, having already put the kettle on, and was holding Holmes in his hand, gently picking at him with a screwdriver, which seemed to do little more than amuse the tiny robot. James had fallen hard and fast for “the stupid little thing,” as Q had called it, and had taken to making sure Holmes wasn’t completely useless by installing a few new features in him that would help around the house. He took to tinkering with him when he was bored, which he seemed to be more often than not as of late.

Q closed his eyes serenely and nodded. “I heard you moving about, so I figured I’d get a head start on the tea,” he said, and James cringed a bit, pausing where he reached up to grab the tea leaves for a moment. He pulled the tin down and closed the cabinet, turning to Q. He didn’t seem upset, just unbelievably cozy and cuddly, his smile small but warm and his hands sure where he unscrewed something on Holmes.

“I’m sorry about that,” James said. “I was trying to be quiet.”

Q shook his head, waving James’s concern away with the hand holding the screwdriver. “Nonsense,” he replied. “I’m a light sleeper. It wasn’t your fault.” He turned back to the kettle once it began whistling, switching off the stove and readying the two teacups he had sitting nearby. “I’m making herbal for myself, though I suspect you’ll want something stronger.”

“I might need the caffeine today,” James agreed, and he handed Q the tin. “My flight leaves at seven.”

Q hummed, nodding absently as he steeped the tea, setting Holmes down on the counter before he poured the hot water. “Obviously the location is top secret.”

James nodded, grabbing the milk, making a mental note to ask Moneypenny to perhaps stock the fridge while Q wasn’t home. It was near-empty, and he couldn’t trust Q to feed himself, sometimes. “Obviously,” he replied.

“Can I at least know how long your trip is estimated to be?” Q asked, handing a cup and saucer to James, who nodded his thanks. He walked over to the pantry and looked around for the honey. “Second shelf from the floor, near the back.” James followed his instructions with his eyes, scooting over a bottle of ketchup and retrieving the honey.

“Ta,” he said, checking the honey before putting some in his tea, accepting a teaspoon from Q with a small smile. “The trip’s estimated to only be about four days or so,” he said, tapping his spoon lightly on his teacup before depositing it in the sink, taking a sip of his tea and relishing in it for a moment before continuing. “But we never know how things like this go.”

Q snorted, huddling in on himself and sipping at his tea. A bit of his hair fell over his face, but he brushed it away absently. Just the sight of him made James long for his bed again. “Life is unpredictable. Sometimes I wonder if the man-made concept of time isn’t just entirely ridiculous or sad. In the end it just seems like all we’re trying to do is control cosmic forces with our meagre power of applying numeric value to everything. ”

“You should become a philosopher.”

Q laughed, setting his tea down on the counter and squaring James with an amused look. “I just ramble when I’m tired. I shouldn’t make a habit or hobby of it, let alone a profession. Besides,” he added, shrugging, “seems rather hypocritical of me, don’t you think? Rambling about the uselessness of manmade applications to time and space when all I do is dabble in numbers and figures?”

James took a sip of his tea, then frowned. “Isn’t there a Coldplay song about something like that?”

Q gave him a blank look. “The Scientist?” he asked. “Jesus, hasn’t the world forgotten about that song? It just completely blew my mind for a moment, remembering that still exists.”

“I remember that was all they would play on the bloody radio,” James groused, polishing off his tea, depositing his cup and saucer into the sink to the tune of Q laughing a little.

“Chris Martin has the voice of a werewolf mixed with an angel,” Q said distantly, and it was James’s turn to laugh, turning to look at Q, who was watching him with a warm look in his eyes. He held his cup close to his chin, both hands spread across the delicate surface, his lips curled in a gentle smile, his eyes twinkling. It was moments like these that made James realize what a bad idea it was to let Q into his life, because when Q looked at him like that, there was nothing James could do to stop the torrent of affection that careened through him.

As it stood, he wasn’t concerned about any accidental emotional giveaways on his part. He was a professional at not acting on feelings like those, renowned for his stoicism both on and off the field. He was nothing if not a good pretender. “You need to get back to bed,” James said gently but not accusingly. “That analogy didn’t make any sense.”

Q frowned at him. “No, it totally did,” he said, drinking his tea and setting his cup on the counter again. “Because he does that howling thing sometimes while other times his voice hits that angelic sort of high, like the beginning of that Sisters of Mercy song—”

“We are _not_ talking about Sisters of Mercy at six thirty in the morning, Q,” James said, moving forward and gently grasping Q’s shoulders, spinning him around and leading him out of the kitchen. Q snagged Holmes and the screwdriver before they left, fiddling with him as James pushed him toward the couch. “I have to leave for my flight. You lie back down and go to sleep, okay?”

Q nodded absently, already focused on modifying Holmes, but he sat back down on the couch, and James retreated for just a few moments, returning with a blanket. He threw it gently around Q’s shoulders, watching as he burrowed further into its warmth, his eyes and hands never leaving Holmes.

James forcibly tore his eyes away from Q, grabbing his bag and preparing himself to leave. He would’ve stayed longer for breakfast, but Q was on the couch and cuddly, and that was the image he wanted to leave burned into his mind. “You have a good few days, Q,” he said, sparing one last glance over his shoulder.

“Mmm,” Q said, his voice already distant, and he’d checked out of the conversation at last. “You too. Stay safe.”

James left with a small smile on his face, making sure to lock the door behind him.

(~~~~)

That was three weeks ago.

Now, as James headed up the stairs to the flat, he could feel the weight of every last second he was gone on his shoulders. He had a bruise the size (and distinct shape, if Alec was being truthful) of Kenya over his left shoulder blade, causing quite a disturbance when he rolled it or made any motion at all with it. His left leg had a burn on it and the gauze needed to be changed. The severity of the burn would benefit from a copious application of aloe and some frozen peas. He had a black eye and a split lip, three of his knuckles swollen and one of his fingernails blackened underneath from a particularly nasty slam in a door (which his assailant paid for, with interest).

He was tired from the flight, tired from the debriefing, and by the time he and Alec had parted ways outside M’s door, neither of them had even had the strength to tease one another about anything that happened on the trip, as they were wont to do. James had practically crawled into the standard black MI6 POS, nearly drifted off twice on the way home, and had then proceeded to crawl into his building, getting strange looks from Mrs. Donoghue (why was it always _her_ who was in the lobby when James was looking and feeling like shit or when there was an intruder in their apartment?) and answering her questions in regards to his looks with vacant things such as “I got mugged on the way home from work,” which didn’t seem to satisfy her at all. He hadn’t even realized he’d been backing up toward the stairwell until he was in it. He wasn’t even sure how he’d managed to walk up the stairs this far at all, actually.

Nevertheless, he managed to work his way up to their floor, pushing open the metal door and already fiddling with his keys, lugging his bag behind him as he made his sorry way toward their front door. There was something calling to him from inside, though he wasn’t sure if it was the alluring prospect of warm tea (everything he’d managed to get on this particular “trip” was cold or tasted dreadful), the equally tantalizing idea of a nice bed waiting to welcome him into it, or perhaps the wild-haired man he’d left snuggled up in a blanket on the couch in his pyjamas and James’s bathrobe who he loved very, very much.

James stopped in front of his door, woozily listing from side to side for a moment before he pressed his hand to the wall to steady himself. He tried to insert his key into the lock with his free hand as he thought. Love was a strong word, and he was very sleepy. Logic dictated that his mind was exacerbating things (and wow, that was two Edgar Wright movie references in one day; he really _was_ tired) due to the tiredness, and once he had a proper cuppa and a nice long nap, he’d wake up and discover that his feelings (if that’s what they were) for Q were nothing more than those of the overly-affectionate platonic sort, right as they were before he left London.

He nodded to himself, unlocking his door and stepping inside.

The first thing he noticed was that the clock on the wall said eight in the morning, which was still too terribly early for Q to be awake. The second thing that he noticed was that Q was indeed asleep on the couch, a small throw blanket cast over him and his body arranged awkwardly on the cushions, as if he’d just fallen into place and immediately went to sleep that way. And the third thing he noticed was that Q was dressed impeccably for someone who was passed out on the couch.

He was clad in a crisp white dress shirt that was no doubt going to wrinkle horribly since he slept in it like that, along with the deep green waistcoat and black silk tie (which he would send to be professionally laundered, lest he risk Q ruining his clothes by passing out at inopportune moments). He wore black slacks that hugged his thighs and accentuated the curve of his calves, and at the foot of the couch were a pair of shiny black dress shoes—Oxfords, by the look of them. Q’s feet were still in a pair of nice black socks. He’d managed to get his glasses off before passing out, and they sat abandoned on the coffee table. His laptop, for once, was closed.

James stared at him for a moment before setting his bag down slowly and quietly and shutting the door behind him, making sure to lock it and arm the security system by the door. A note sat on the small keypad which listed the new code for the system, as well as what the system did.

 _This new security system is supposed to be a technological doozy; did you know that an electromagnetic pulse could be turned into a device serial killer with the proper equipment and a little bit of techno-magic? I didn’t either. This client apparently has a lot of digital fingerprints that he doesn’t one anyone lifting, so he asked for a system that sends both an electrical and an electromagnetic shock through the offender which fries their devices as well as their_ devices _, so to speak._

_The code for this one is “Werewolf Angel,” because I still think the analogy was fantastic no matter how early in the morning it was._

_P.S: Holmes missed you._

James couldn’t help but smile as he punched in the code, making sure not to miss the capitals in case it was case sensitive. Then, he turned to Q, wondering whether or not to wake him up, if only to get him into something more comfortable before lying him down again.

James walked toward him, taking in his limbs cast over the edge of the couch, the strange twist of his back—he’d get a cramp like that, for sure—and the narrow trim of his waist, visible from even under the blanket. He looked up at Q’s face, delighted to see him peaceful in sleep, seeing as he got so little of it in the first place. He frowned at a bit of collar poking up from where it should have been smoothed down, and he leaned forward over the back of the couch, gently plucking the starched fabric and smoothing it back down at the proper angle.

An angry, red mark on Q’s neck caught his eye immediately; a ring of red, half-moon shapes around a spotted bruise. A quick diagnostic catalogued it as a hickey and bite marks, most definitely not meant to cause any harm.

James straightened and headed for the kitchen, suddenly wide awake. Fuck it. He was getting a tea.

(~~~~)

James had tried to catch the kettle before it whistled too loudly, but he’d been holding a rather heated yet silent conversation with Holmes, who he’d been required to rescue from the cabinet again, so he missed it. The little robot seemed well, and after a brief scan of James’s eye, seemed to even recognize him. He’d let James talk at him quickly but quietly with little more than a few blinks of encouragement, so he sort of assumed Holmes considered him a friend.

In any event, the kettle ended up shrieking, and despite quickly removing it from the flames, he heard a noise from the living room. Feeling something cold shake its way through him, freezing his demeanor, James stoically steeped his tea, turning his mind off for a moment and pretending he was someone else.

His mind registered the quiet footsteps as if he was waiting for an ambush, but he didn’t turn around. They stopped at the entryway to the kitchen, and the gentle swish of expensive fabric heralded Q leaning against the doorway.

“James,” he said, voice soft and sleep-addled, and James kept his eyes on his tea instead of casting a look over his shoulder as he usually did when Q addressed him. “When did you get back?”

“Not an hour ago,” James replied, keeping his tone neutral. “I see you fell asleep on the couch again.”

“My bed’s still a mess from everything I do, James,” Q said, his tone sounding fondly exasperated, and James tried not to catch that unintentional innuendo, but his mind was still swirling from the sight of that bite mark, and nothing was really certain anymore. “Nothing about that is going to change in the near future.”

“It ought to,” James replied, deeming the tea ready and stirring it gently with his spoon. “You could’ve ruined those clothes sleeping like that. Along with your neck, too. That couch is by no means comfortable.”

“You don’t know that couch like I do,” Q replied. “And I don’t care if these clothes are ruined. Burn them with gasoline is what I say.”

James finally turned to face him, taking in the disheveled mop of his black hair, the soft, tired smile he sported. His arms were crossed, his body indeed leaning against the doorway, and he looked fantastic. Actually delectable, like something James could pluck up and eat. Apparently someone had already decided to try a bite.

He just barely stopped his growl. This was unlike him.

“Why burn them?” he asked instead. “They look good on you. I didn’t even know you had this in your wardrobe.”

“Because I didn’t until a few days ago,” Q replied, shuffling into the kitchen and searching for a teacup, getting up on his toes to reach into the cabinet. James leaned against the counter and drank, watching Q thoughtfully.

“Why’d you get them, anyway? Decide you wanted something out of your norm? Finally realized your cardigans are suitable only for scavenging materials to make tea cozies and circus tents?”

Q cast him a glare over his shoulder before resuming his hunt for glassware. “Those cardigans are so comfortable that they keep me from smacking you when you get to be too much for yourself,” he said before turning back to his search. “And if by ‘out of your norm’ you mean ‘out of your comfort zone,’ then yes, that’s an apt description of what these things are. Ah,” he said, cradling the teacup in his hands. “I’m not tall enough to reach all the way back there.”

He set about making himself tea, James watching his every move more intently than he usually did. Despite his anger, which was still simmering in the back of his mind, there was something about being around Q that made him feel at home again. The weeks he’d been gone were long and treacherous, and after spending so long away from him, it was nice to hear his voice again, to watch the subtle nuances of his existence. He was palpable and near, and that was more sustaining than any promises MI6 could make him once he got back.

“The clothes weren’t my idea,” Q said, steeping some tea and turning to face James. “Commissions were a bit slow this week, so I had to improvise. There is a nice bar a couple of blocks away that needed a bartender, and, due to reasons I will not share at present, I happen to have experience in that profession. So, I applied. And since I was accepted, I needed to get this heinous wardrobe to blend in.”

James thought on this. “So you’re working,” he said, and Q nodded. It made sense, then, that Q was so tired despite the early hour. Normally, Q was passed out during daylight hours and up until it was early, being a night owl on normal days. He probably didn’t get any naps in, either.

Q shifted, yawning, and unclasped the top button of his dress shirt, tugging at his tie so it hung a bit lower. “I’m surprised I passed out with this madness,” he said, gesturing to his tie with a dark expression on his face. “Now that I’m up it feels like I’m being gently choked by a satin assassin.” Q paused, chuckling to himself. “An assatin, if you will.”

James laughed at the joke, but it was a bit forced. With the loosening of his collar and tie, Q had put the red mark into full view, and James couldn’t help frowning at it. It was a little better when his collar had hidden part of it, but now that he could see it again, he got that angry feeling once more.

He hid his frown behind his tea, but Q’s brow furrowed, and he moved his hand up past his collar, as if searching for something. Then, his fingers glanced over the mark, and his eyes grew wide. “Shit,” he murmured quietly. “That happened.”

James tried to stop his rather visceral pleasure from seeing Q look chagrined, but he couldn’t. All the same, something in him rioted that sad look on Q’s face, demanding he make Q feel better. “What happened?” he asked softly, and Q looked at him again from where he’d been staring at the floor.

“I was walking someone home from work,” he said. “His name’s Jake. It was his twenty third birthday, I think, so we all stayed a little late for drinks with him as a sort of party. Well, of course he mixed himself a few and got totally pissed, so one of us had to make sure he got home okay. Since he was on my way, I figured I’d volunteer.” He chuckled a little to himself. “Well, I never supposed walking home with him would be _that_ kind of problem. I was more concerned about us getting mugged or something. But he made a pass, and a drunken one at that. Luckily, my saying no was enough to deter him, but obviously I didn’t refuse quite fast enough.” His hand covered the mark entirely, his cheeks going a slight shade of pink. “It’s a bit embarrassing, to be honest,” he murmured, and James’s anger completely deflated.

“I’m sorry,” he said, setting his cup down. “It’s a bit odd, being kissed by a man. Trust me, I know.” He didn’t feel it worth mentioning that it was odd at first, but that oddity faded into something far more enjoyable over time.

Q laughed, waving his free hand at James. “It’s not that that I minded, so much as the emphatic mark he left on my person as a result of his… fervor,” he said with a chuckle. “I don’t even have an impressive story to tell anyone about it, either.”

James laughed a little, too, turning back to his teacup and finishing the last dregs. “Maybe someday, you’ll have that mark to remember,” he said, relief flooding through him. Things were back to normal, it seemed.

“Maybe,” Q replied, but his tone seemed a little off, his voice a bit airy. “And maybe next time I’ll get it from the person I want it from most.”

James turned, his brow furrowed, and he met Q’s gaze almost immediately. There was something about Q’s expression, blank but infinitely raw, that twisted something deep within James. Q was looking so good, his hair mussed and his lithe body clad in nice clothes, and James wavered over some kind of precipice. A question weighed heavily on his tongue.

His phone rang.

He answered it, looking away.

“Hello?” he asked, and Q moved, taking James’s cup and saucer and starting the sink.

“James, it’s Alec,” Alec said, his voice tinny over the line. “We’ve been called back to MI6. Apparently we cocked up the paperwork.”

James closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose and resisting the urge to throttle M. “How in the hell did we cock up the paperwork when M was the one leading us through said paperwork?”

“Exactly my protestations,” Alec replied. “All the same, he said to take our grievances to him in person and he’d sort them out. Which is to say he won’t. The cheek.”

“I’ll be there in twenty,” he said, and he hung up. He looked up at Q, smiling apologetically. “I’ve been summoned back to hell, apparently,” he said.

Q looked at him over his shoulder, smiling softly, his eyes a bit brighter now that he’d had his tea. Whatever had been on his face before had disappeared, and James hoped he’d be able to see it again someday. “The world never rests,” Q replied. “The life of James Bond is an unfair one, it seems.”

“That it is,” James said, and, feeling more frustrated than he was before he arrived, he left the apartment again.

**Author's Note:**

> Come visit me on [tumblr!](http://exacteyewriting.tumblr.com)


End file.
